SURVEY OF BUILDING STRUCTURES OF THE SIERRAN GOLD BELT, 1848-70 HEIZER AND FENENGA 



123 



^^rW 



*J 





. * 





FIG. 74. Kuini'd sc'liist-\vulle<l buildiiiK just west of Murph.vs, DMBS Cal-H12. 



FIG. 75. Stone corral, 6 miles west of Altaville, DMBS Cal-H13. 



COPPEROPOLIS 



Six miles west of Altaville on the road to Copperopolis, two well 

 preserved stone corrals can be seen (Fig. 75). They are made of ser- 

 pentine and meta-andesite fieldstone. 



Copperopolis is 12 miles west of Altaville via Highway 4. The min- 

 ing of copper at this town began within a very few years after the gold 

 discovery and its building boom shared the architectural styles of the 

 Mother Lode country. Most of the standing buildings in Copperopolis 

 are built of brick (some of which was secured from buildings which were 

 torn down in Columbia in the 1860's) but there are some buildings and 

 many foundations built of local fieldrock, mostly meta-andesite together 

 with some schist and serpentine. Among the most interesting buildings 

 to be seen is the Odd Fellows Hall, built as a church in 1862. It is built 

 of brick and rests on a foundation of meta-andesite which contains 

 copper ore. This foundation material is probably waste rock from one 

 of the mines (Fig. 76). A store at the south end of town has a front 

 section built of brick dovetailed into a rear section built of meta-andesitic 

 field rock (Fig. 77). 



SALT SPRINGS VALLEY 



Salt Springs Valley, a few miles northwest of Copperopolis, was 

 the site of several early-day mining and ranching ventures. Scattered 

 stone and adobe buildings of the 'fifties occur in this valley, particularly 

 on the Andrew "Williams ranch where there was once a town called 

 Felix or Stone Creek Settlement (Fig. 78). 



JENNY LIND 



Jenny Lind, today almost deserted, was a booming town during 

 the Gold Rush and vestiges of her previous opulence are seen in the 

 abandoned ruins of stone and adobe buildings. The town can be reached 

 from Copperopolis via Salt Springs Valley and Milton. It is seven miles 

 north of Milton. A building made of carefully dressed blocks of tuffa- 

 ceous sandstone (Fig. 79) was once a grocery store. The building material 

 was quarried near Valley Springs, a few miles to the north. One large 

 adobe structure still stands (Fig. 80). Its foundation is made of local 

 fieldstone. An old quarry, dug into an outcrop of lone silty sandstone 

 can be seen on the hillside just behind the town (Fig. 81). 



